


Behind the Light

by Pureblood_Muggle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Complete, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 13:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pureblood_Muggle/pseuds/Pureblood_Muggle
Summary: George Weasley is a fun guy, with a great business, beautiful wife, and brilliant children. On the outside, he has it all.





	Behind the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frumpologist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frumpologist/gifts).



> Thank you Frumpologist for making me pull out the finger and get writing again. This was written for the Weekly Prompt over at Fairest of the Rare. Prompt: George Weasley and 'Hello Darkness My Old Friend'
> 
> This is the first thing I've written in a VERY long time. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, disclaimer: I am not JKR, if I were I wouldn't publish here, and certainly I also receive no money from any of this. The monopoly money doesn't count, sadly!

It’s Friday. I should be down there, not letting my employees struggle alone. The shop’s only open until lunchtime today but even those few hours I cannot manage today.

I just can’t. Ten years. Ten fucking years today and it still hurts like it was yesterday. I wince when a stray ray of sunshine flitters through the moving curtain. I flick my wand and the window slams shut, keeping out the breeze and pesky light.

All the curtains are drawn, lights are off, and it’s still too fucking bright in here. I get up to cast another set of darkening spells when I catch my reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. It’s shadowy in this low light, but still, it’s too much.

I react before my brain catches up with my wand and the shards fly in all directions. One hits me in the face and it stings. I wince and pull it out staring at the blood smeared fragment before flicking it to the ground.

I don’t want to feel that sting, I don’t want to bleed. It means I’m still alive and he isn’t and it isn’t right; it isn’t fair. I don’t want to feel or do anything today. Least of all remember, or celebrate. How can I celebrate losing half of myself?

364 days of the year I kid myself that I am okay. That I’m happy with my life, my wife, my children. I love them. I really do. Fred and Roxanne are amazing. Mischievous, funny, clever – anything I could ever want from my offspring and more. Angelina, she’s wonderful, too. And I do love her. I really do. Despite what some people think.

Today I just can’t face them or anyone else for that matter. Today I allow the darkness to overwhelm me.

I don’t have sleeves on my t-shirt so I pull up the hem and wipe at my face to remove the blood somewhat. Fuck it, another scar I’m sure but I don’t care. At least I can still bleed and scar.  
Fred can’t.

And with that thought, it begins. The unbelievably heavy lead feeling in my stomach spreads outward like a freezing octopus sticking its tentacles into every available inch of my body. It overwhelms me, clogs my throat and I swallow convulsively to try and clear it so I can breathe.

I gasp when it doesn’t seem to work, gasp again and panic sets in when it feels I’m suffocating. I rip at my t-shirt trying in vain to remove the collar from my throat and collapse onto my knees hitting the wood floors with an audible crunch on the mirror shards.

I still fight for breath but instead of getting a good deep breath in, a sob escapes my mouth and the tears follow and I can’t stop any of it. I’m on all fours now, sobbing and gasping and bleeding from my face, my hands, my knees and I cannot make it stop, cannot make myself get up. All I can do is give in.

I have no idea how long I am like this. All I know is that my throat is raw, my breathing shallow and I’m on the floor curled in on myself staring into nothing. I’m not aware of time, barely register that I’m still in the old flat above the shop. The one Fred and I used to share before… before.

My brain brings me back to thoughts of him, laughing as he mixes us a drink after we close up the shop but never leaving work behind. Always thinking of the next product, new ideas, or girls he wants to take out.

A shuddering breath leaves me and I can’t stand the thinking so I push myself up, ignoring the sharp pains from the shattered mirror pieces and go to the kitchen. I grab a bottle of Blishen’s Single Malt Firewhisky and a glass and sit at the rickety old table.  
I don’t want to relive Fred’s death today. I know I will anyway, but I don’t want to. I want to sleep and never wake up. Except I don’t really because I couldn’t leave my wife and my kids. But I can have a little reprieve. So I fill the little tumbler 4 fingers up and down it in one go.

It goes down smoothly. The trick, I had long since learned, is to keep your mouth slightly open and breathe around it. That way it won’t burn your throat as much. The second measure quickly follows the first and by the third, I wonder why on Earth I bothered with a tumbler in the first place. So number four is a good swig directly from the bottle.

No doubt I’ll be regretting the hangover in the morning. There are other ways to black out but I cannot take Dreamless Sleep Potion anymore. I made a vow. Addiction is a bad thing. Dreamless Sleep Potion shouldn’t be taken more than three days in a row. After four months and a sudden supply stop, I had the worst withdrawal of my life.

Poppy informed me that it was one of the ingredients that did it. And just one will have me hooked again. So I can’t relapse. Not again. I vowed it to Angie the year when she was pregnant with Roxanne and she’d found me passed out with our little boy Fred trapped under me in our bed. She was unable to wake me and the guilt I felt after I had been told what happened nearly drowned me.

I hide away now. Every 2nd of May. And she lets me. So here I am, looking for the bottom of the bottle and hoping it is enough to drown out any further thought.

I feel empty and drained. I know I wouldn’t continue if it weren’t for Fred and Roxanne. I would hope Angie would understand that I need to be with him. This is a half-life at best and more than once have I considered just ending it all. But not yet. My two wouldn’t understand. And I need to see them grow up. I can’t let them live like Harry, or Teddy, never knowing their dad.

So I sit, and I wait for sweet oblivion and I hope it comes, and willingly let the darkness take me over like an old friend.


End file.
